Promise of Joy (3 page)

“But you couldn’t just walk away and let him have it!” Hal protested in a half whisper.

“No,” his father said quietly, “I could not, or I should have betrayed everything I believe in for this country, everything my whole life has stood for. So it isn’t so simple. And it isn’t for him, either.… The country is badly divided right now. We have enemies everywhere, both inside and outside, who would love to see us brought down, even though the fools will go down with us if we aren’t here to protect them. We need unity. He does command an enormous support among a great many sincere citizens who really do see in him the hope for peace that they honestly cannot see in me. This extends overseas as well. I’ve denied him the top spot by a very narrow margin, and many of those people are not going to be satisfied unless they can see him beside me—unless they can feel that he is offering some moderating influence on my policies, which they think are so horrible.”

“But you
can’t
accept his views on appeasing and giving in,” Hal said in the same dismayed half whisper.

“No,” Orrin agreed again, “I can’t. But one thing he said when he addressed the mob at Kennedy Center this afternoon did make sense, and that is that times change and people change.” He smiled a wry little smile, almost wistful. “I’m not anywhere near the positive soul I was in the Senate a year and a half ago, you know. I’ve been close to the center of the machine for a while as Secretary of State, and I know it isn’t so easy. It isn’t all black and white and cut and dried; it’s a sort of horrible gray, like fighting your way through a dirty fog where everything is hazy and blurred and you’re not even sure that the light ahead
is
a light: it may be just a—just a mirage.…No, I’ve changed, and I like to think for the better. And so can he. So
will
he, if I have anything to say about it. And I think I will.…He has good qualities—he wants to do what’s right for the country, I think—he just needs to be shown. And he does command an enormous popular support—”

“And you want to win the election,” Hal interrupted, his tone so bitter again that his father for a few moments was too crushed to reply. “You want the votes he can bring with him.
You
want to win.”

“Yes,” Orrin said at last, quietly, “I want to win. Because I think I can save the country and save the general peace, in the long run, and I want to try.…”

And there, of course, he had come squarely back to what seemed to him the essential justification of all his acts, as it was Ted’s self-justification too: peace, that great will-o’-the-wisp that had provided the basic inspiration for the actions of every American President in the past three decades. Peace, so glittering, so golden, so flickering, so faint. The greatest mirage of them all, for which men everywhere worked and labored and did unto other men horrible things, because to all of them peace did not mean peace unless they could somehow have it on their own terms.…

Later on, Hal, who in his bitter youthfulness had probed so many tender things, had given indication that he was forgiving his father, that he was finally convinced that Ted Jason had to share the ticket for the sake of what Orrin had told the National Committee must be an “Era of Reconciliation,” both at home and abroad. If Hal had seen it, even the skeptical among Orrin’s supporters could be made to see it. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of reconciliation among the hostile nations of the earth, and among the violently warring elements in America.…

This, in Orrin’s mind, transcends all other considerations, and to it he knows he will pledge himself publicly when, before the hour is over, he stands before his country and the world at the Washington Monument to make his acceptance speech and outline the policies he intends to follow if elected in November.

In these policies he hopes he will have the willing support of his running mate, for with that support will come the support of all the many millions who see in Ted Jason the world’s best hope for peace. If that support comes, then Orrin will not only win the election. He will also be able to move firmly to increase the chances for peace abroad and to diminish the power of the violent at home.

Without Ted’s full support, he knows that in all probability he cannot win the election, for Ted is the darling of the media, whose powerful pens and voices have made him the darling of the people, and Orrin very definitely is not. He has won his fight for the nomination. But his victory is openly and harshly begrudged.

He has not won the support of the media—could not, after all their years of mutually hostile battling over differing views of foreign policy—or of vast numbers of his countrymen who have been conditioned for the better part of three decades to be suspicious and resentful of Orrin Knox. His margin of victory for the nomination was small, his area of really genuine popularity is small. If he wins the White House, it will be because of votes reluctantly given him as an indirect endorsement of Ted Jason. If he wins, it will not be a recognition of the integrity of Orrin Knox, but a recognition of the popularity of Ted Jason.

This is not as he feels it should be, but being a blunt and pragmatic man, he knows this is how it is. And thus he is bound to his equivocal running mate whether he wants to be or not. All the conflicting elements whom he must somehow weld into a unified force enable Ted to hold him in pawn even more effectively than Ted himself, perhaps, realizes.

Exactly what Ted does realize about his own situation at the moment, Orrin finds it impossible to understand. After all the heated, frustrating and inconclusive conversations he and President Abbott have had with Ted—culminating finally in a flat ultimatum from Orrin that Ted must repudiate NAWAC and all the violent or be barred from the ticket—Orrin still does not know whether Ted has the slightest comprehension of the dangers he has been flirting with in his fight for the nomination—or, indeed, in what Orrin regards as his dangerously flaccid and complaisant attitude toward the never-resting imperialism of the Communist powers.

Ted has been, and remains, an enigma to Orrin, although Orrin thinks he understands the basic motivation, for it has been his own: Ted has wanted to win. So has Orrin, but not at the price of running with the pack that will, he feels, destroy America both at home and abroad if it cannot be checked.

Well, he tells himself abruptly: well. Grim lines come about the firm, emphatic lips.
He
intends to check the pack and, by God,
he will,
both at home and abroad. And if Ted Jason and his friends don’t like it, they can lump it. He will have the power and he will use it. They will have met not only their match but their master.

And as abruptly his mood changes, to be succeeded by an instant ironic bitterness as he surveys the world he wants so much to run. What will he have confronting him if he finally achieves his long-held ambition to sit behind the desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Gorotoland, strategic key to the heart of Africa, in flames as its U.S.-supported hereditary ruler, flamboyant “Terrible Terry”—His Royal Highness Terence Wolowo Ajkaje, 137th M’Bulu of Mbuele—battles desperately to hold his throne against the onslaught of his equally flamboyant cousin, Communist-backed Prince Obifumatta.

Panama, in flames as the Communist-backed People’s Liberation Movement of Ted’s former brother-in-law, Felix Labaiya-Sofra, attempts to overturn the U.S.-backed government of the old oligarchy and seize the Canal.

In both countries, overt support for the revolutionaries, from both the Soviet Union and mainland China.

In both countries, commitments of U.S. forces by Harley Hudson that placed his immediate successor, William Abbott, in a most difficult position both in the eyes of the world and in practical fact—commitments that will put upon Bill Abbott’s successor the obligation to end both conflicts and get out as fast as possible, with honor if he can manage it, without honor if he can’t.

And domestically, all the anti-war turmoil, recently spilled over into a violence with sinister undertones that lead many to suspect that the excuse of foreign involvement is being used as the fulcrum for domestic revolution.

This lovely picture, full of so many potentially fatal pitfalls for the next American Chief Executive, is what confronts him now. It is, he suspects, the main reason why Bill Abbott has held firm to his decision to serve until January and then return to the House and the Speakership he has held for so many years.

Why in the hell would any sane man want the responsibility?

But, then, of course Orrin Knox knows why, for it is the same reason that motivates Ted, the same that has motivated every aspirant to the Presidency in recent years. Because
he—
in this case Orrin—believes
he
knows best. Because
he
thinks
he
has the answers—or, at least, some of them. Because, though he may not know exactly how he will go about it, he does know that
he
desperately wants to achieve world peace and restore domestic tranquility, and he honestly believes that
he
is more sincere and more determined about this than all his competitors.

Power is the great desideratum of all who rise above a certain level in American politics. But for the best—and they are many—it is not a completely selfish desire.
Power to do something constructive for the country and the world
is the name of the game, for the most earnest, the most idealistic, the most dedicated and the most sincere. Orrin feels—as all who achieve the highest office have had to feel, to survive all the scars of getting there—that he possesses these qualities in greater measure than anybody. Otherwise, why would he have been permitted to come so far and rise so high?

Just as he reaches this flight of self-righteousness—and just as his innate Knox self-skepticism and sense of balance starts to come to his rescue to keep him from going entirely overboard in self-congratulation—the door to the bedroom opens and the other half of the famous Illinois team of “Orrin and Beth” comes in.

“I know that look,” Beth says with a chuckle. “You’re telling yourself that nobody, but
nobody,
has more answers to anything than Orrin Knox does.”

“Hank,” he says blandly, using the nickname he has used ever since she was Elizabeth Henry, fellow student at the University of Illinois, so many years ago, “it is the only possible mood in which to approach an acceptance speech. Particularly,” he adds, looking less cheerful, “when you don’t know whether your running mate is going to go along with you or not.”

“Do you really have doubts?” she asks, coming forward to the mirror and leaning forward to adjust the off-the-face white hat she has chosen to go with the sensible green dress and comfortable white pumps she is wearing for this auspicious occasion. Their eyes meet as he replies thoughtfully.

“I wouldn’t say I was entirely confident. Although he did promise me last night that he will absolutely, completely, unequivocally, cross-his-heart-and-hope-to-die repudiate NAWAC, the violent, the Communists and all their sleazy vicious doings.”

“The question,” she says with an equal thoughtfulness, sitting on the bed and studying the problem, “is whether they will repudiate him. And if they don’t, what they will do to you.”

“They will go along with me,” he says crisply, “as long as Ted is at my side.”

“And if he shouldn’t be—?” She gives him a quizzical look and he responds with one surprised and skeptical.

“Why won’t he?” he asks. “Knowing Ted Jason, I don’t believe he’s going to give up his position ‘one heartbeat away,’ etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. After all, if I’m not very successful in the next four years, I might not seek—or win—a second term. And he’s still young enough so that either way he’d be set to be the next nominee. He may make a few noises now and then just to show he’s still really a stout and independent fellow, but I suspect for the most part he’ll stick pretty close to stodgy old reactionary Orrin. Which, after all, is exactly what I want him to do. I need him. By the same token, he needs me. That’s why we’re together, and, I expect, are going to stay together.”

“I think you will intend to,” she agrees, still thoughtfully. He takes her up on it sharply.

“Then why won’t we?”

“You may not,” she says quietly, “be the only people involved, you know. Communists and the violent don’t always go away just because people say they should. Sometimes they have purposes more involved than we simple souls can believe.”

“But what would be the point in killing him, if that’s what you mean?”

“There wouldn’t be any point in killing him,” she agrees with a certain wry bluntness. “I agree with you, why should anybody kill
him?”

“Hank,” he says calmly, “I am not going to start worrying at this late date about anyone killing
me.
I know some have wanted to, I know some still may; but the great majority are satisfied to have him on the ticket and in a position to become heir apparent—”

“He
is
the heir apparent,” she interrupts with a sudden sharpness of her own. “Watch out for yourself.”

“I won’t believe,” he says firmly, “that Ted Jason would be, or could be, party to any attempt on my life.”

“Any more than he was party to an attempt on Crystal’s,” she remarks quietly. “Nonetheless, it happened.”

“You and I,” he says with equal quietness, “have faced the possibility of assassination ever since I entered public life. It’s true, the chances are greater now, the occurrence being a thing that feeds on itself in a world of kooks and crazies—”

“Not always kooks,” she says, “and not always crazies. Sometimes very cold-blooded and very calculating people who know exactly what they’re doing. It seems to me you’re a sitting duck for someone like that.”

“So what would you have me do at this late date?” he demands. “Quit? Say, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean I want to be President, include me out, I’m going home’? Don’t be silly, Hank. You’re talking like a scared old lady now, not like the next behind-the-scenes President of the United States!”

“Well,” she says, smiling a little in response to his deliberately joshing tone, “it may have its humorous aspects, but even so—”